Whirlpool
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Movie Reviews of Whirlpool
Movie Review: movie review
Summary: 4 Stars
The movie is great, but I ordered this movie 19 May 09, it was suppose to be shipped by the 21st of May and I did not receive this movie until the 3rd of July.Movie Review: Ferrer as Satanic Svengali
Summary: 3 Stars
Jose Ferrer proved he had a strong acting presence and reached his peak in his virtuoso role in "Cyrano de Bergerac." In "Whirlpool" he is cast in a role that stretches his talents.
Ferrer can display a modicum of style mixed with a strong measure of authority when he is so disposed. Ultimately he emerges as a satanic Svengali hell bent on destroying beautiful Gene Tierney.
Tierney, for her part, is cast as a vulnerable woman who is seen as ripe pickings by the opportunistic Ferrer. After all, she is the wife of a prominent psychiatrist, played by Richard Conte in a shift from more traditionally machismo roles, and has plenty of money.
Otto Preminger, the director who specialized in films dealing with the "moral ambiguity" of America in the mid-century period, was just the person to develop such a conflict on screen in this 1949 release.
It was only natural for veteran scenarist Ben Hecht to write the screenplay, working with Andrew Solt. After all, it was Hecht who gave us such psychological thrillers working with Alfred Hitchcock as "Spellbound" and "Notorious."
The film begins with Ferrer helping Tierney out of a jam. Even though she lives an affluent life with her highly successful husband, Tierney is a kleptomaniac. When she attempts to steal a brooch from a department store the store's detective is there to apprehend her before she has a chance to drive away.
Ferrer comes to the rescue of Tierney. The store manager knows him well and immediately seeks to bring an unfortunate matter to a close. His conduct tips off viewers early that Ferrer is the type of individual who can and will cause trouble if and when he feels so disposed and has a formidable reputation.
It takes Ferrer little time to adopt his Svengali manner and seek to dominate Tierney, who in turn resists. Before long circumstances develop under Ferrer's unscrupulous planning that she is charged with a murder.
To give away more would interfere with the suspense plotting, but it can be said without giving away critical facts that Ferrer is a man who plays by the "take no prisoners" rules. Opportunism and domination are his twin hallmarks.
Just as we have an ongoing conflict in the relationship between Ferrer and Tierney, we have a corresponding cooperative alliance that emerges between Tierney's husband Conte and police-investigating detective Charles Bickford.
When Bickford sees that Conte is a loyal husband convinced that the woman he loves is innocent, Bickford confides that his wife died recently, generating empathy between the two men as he begins to increasingly believe that Tierney is an innocent victim.
Bickford, as a shrewd and veteran police officer, realizes that he can benefit from Conte's professional expertise from his background as a world famous psychiatrist. Conte's knowledge of the effects of hypnosis proves highly beneficial in helping solve the case.
Bickford at a critical juncture treats Conte more like an investigative partner rather than the husband of the official prime suspect of the moment and his strategy ploy brings results when a Conte strategy ploy results with Ferrer figuratively "hanging himself on his own petard."
Movie Review: Worth seeing for two reasons....
Summary: 3 Stars
1) Gene Tierney, who is a big, dripping jelly sandwich of sexiness.
2) Jose Ferrer, who is so casually suave and interesting and funny and assured, he not only belongs in a different movie but in a different reality. His charlatan, Korvo, should've wound up in a film by William Friedkin or James Toback. He looks a little like the actor Tim Blake Nelson and his physical appearance is so antithetical to the character he plays -- a mink-smooth, mesmerizing con artist -- that at first I was disappointed and I wondered if he could pull it off. "Is *that* the bad guy?" I thought, when he first appeared onscreen. Almost immediately -- during the department store debate -- he proved he was and then immediately transcended an otherwise forgettable picture.
The movie itself is semi-noir hogwash -- psychoanalysis from the perspective of 1949 but what we're really talking here is a Preminger sermon on the sanctity of marriage and the trouble girls can get into when they misbehave. Only when it speaks so frankly it actually trumps the sordid subtext (with exchanges such as, "He helped me sleep!" "How? By making love to you?") does it extend past its pulpy plot.
Movie Review: Not sure this is a noir, but...
Summary: 3 Stars
Worth seeing for Jose Ferrar's performance as the oily "hypnotist" and womanizer. The film has Preminger's usual delight in the unsavoury and dark in human nature, but it also has Richard Conti rather miscast as a succesful California psychologist (kinda of like De Niro playing an Irish priest in "True Confessions"...) Of course, Gene Tierney is pretty easy on the eyes, but the film is not really noir, more of a psychological thriller. Not a good place to start if your just getting into classic film noir, but a fine little film nevertheless. Pick this up after you have squeezed everything out of "DOA", "Out of the Past", "Gun Crazy" and "Detour"...Movie Review: A repository of plot holes and psychobabble
Summary: 2 Stars
Ann Sutton (Gene Tierney) is married to Dr. Bill Sutton, an upright psychoanalyst (played by a completely miscast Richard Conte). When we first meet Ann, she's getting arrested by a store detective in a department store after attempting to steal an expensive piece of jewelry. Okay, so that's a bit of a twist--our heroine is a kleptomaniac. Next into the mix is the oily David Korvo (nicely and seedily played by Jose Ferrer). He knows the department store owner and convinces him to drop the charges against Ann.
Korvo is 1949's answer to a new age practitioner: he dabbles in astrology but is principally a hypnotist. At first Ann believes Korvo is trying to blackmail her but he persuades her that he really wants to be her 'therapist'. Ann is smart enough to realize that Korvo is trying to get her to come up to his hotel room so they can have sex so she meets him downstairs in the hotel lobby. Korvo gives up on the sex idea but has more sinister plans. At first, he charges $50 for hypnotism sessions which appear to be helping Ann with her insomnia.
We learn more about Korvo from one of Bill Sutton's patients, Theresa Randolph, who tries to warn Ann that Korvo is a blackmailer and up to no good but Ann believes that Theresa is merely jealous of her relationship with this extremely crafty Svengali (apparently Bill adheres to a strict code of doctor-patient confidentiality as Ann has never met Theresa Randolph before). Bill records his therapy sessions on new-fangled long playing records which he stores in a closet in his home. Everything about Korvo's 'modus operandi' (his penchant for blackmail and physical abuse) are detailed in these recordings and Korvo realizes that he has to get his hands on them if he is to continue in his career as a con artist.
So what does Korvo do? He murders Randolph (just as she's about to change her will negating a bequest that leaves Korvo a large amount of money as part of her estate). He also hypnotizes Ann and has her steal the Randolph therapy session recordings and puts them in a closet in Randolph's house. He sets Ann up by leaving a glass with Ann's fingerprint on it in Randolph's home. The police arrive and arrest Ann for murder.
Now it gets strange, real strange! Korvo needs an alibi. Apparently he's been having gall bladder problems so he arranges to have an operation at two in the afternoon on the day of the murder. The murder occurs at nine in the evening so how does Korvo pull it off? Well we find out (quite improbably) that Korvo hypnotized himself and was able to drag himself out of bed and commit the murder.
The hypnotist's power of suggestion has a prominent role in this film but unfortunately much too prominent. I always believed that hypnotism might be a useful tool in helping people overcome minor health or psychological problems (such as Ann being helped with her insomnia at the beginning of the film). But I didn't buy it for a minute when Korvo orders Ann around in a trance and then hypnotizes himself hours after major surgery. And then Korvo does it again--he hypnotizes himself once more so he can leave the hospital and try and get his hands on the recordings. But instead of taking the recordings and getting out of the deceased Randolph's house right away (or even destroying them at the house), he tarries and begins playing them on the phonograph in the living room. This gives the Suttons and the investigating detective enough time to arrive at the crime scene where they eventually confront Korvo, who drops dead from blood loss (apparently his hypnotic suggestions are not powerful enough to stanch the bleeding--complications from his surgery earlier that afternoon).
Aside from the obvious plot holes, there is also a distasteful conceit being peddled by the film's screenwriters here. The dubious and subjective 'profession' of psychoanalysis not only is depicted as being highly 'scientific' but is also placed on par with practitioners in the medical profession. 'Unscientific', unlicensed 'healers' (represented by the evil Korvo) are presented as bogus and manipulative in striking contrast to the upright Dr. Sutton (who uses his psychobabble) to uncover the ROOT of his wife's kleptomania. With some kind soothing words, Dr. Sutton will soon solve his wife's neurosis and they can once again move amongst their social equals and bring good cheer to them without the fear of scandal.
If you see this on DVD, there's some interesting commentary by film critic Richard Shickel. He notes that the late film critic, Pauline Kael, termed this film "a real stinker". But Schikel is more on the side of critic Andrew Sarris who felt there were a lot of worthwhile things about the film. While Tierney and Ferrer's performances draw you in, the plot holes and the psychobabble are enough to keep one from taking the DVD off the shelf and watching it every couple of months. I'm not sure if 'Whirlpool' deserves to be called a 'real stinker' but it's decidedly no great work of art!